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Patriots & Ex-Pats

Getting Your Money’s Worth

Time to open the stupidest inbox in the blogosphere for the M3 Friday Follies. This week’s contestants are a mixed bag of illiterate and stupid, so do put the drink out of reach. Hate for you to spray the screen or knock it over when you clap your hand on your forehead wondering the eternal question of Red’s…

What keeps their skulls
from caving in?

Inhabitants of the SIB this week all get a stupid award of one form or the other, but you will get to vote on the stupidest at the end. Just another interaction with M3 and shaping the course of blogosphere history… and email blockage.

Literary Guinness

Our first contestant hatemails from the sunny state of California. In what is a hilarious trend, the M3 Friday Follies is getting hatemail. Yes, hatemail for the hatemail. The redundancy might just make my brain bleed. Meet Nikole.

I cannot believe anybody could say such hateful things about Shakespeare. He is The Great Bard because he is the greatest poet of our time. Everyone knows there was no therapy in those days. He was working through what has to be the mother of all major depressions. Everything he wrote drips of suicidal ideation.”

No, a Google search did not bring up Nikole’s curriculum vitae proclaiming a degree in social work or psychology. Is it necessary to mention? No English literature degree either. Pity. Sharpen horns.

Your assertions are very interesting. I have a few questions though which may clear up my obvious misunderstanding. Were you intimate with Shakespeare and thereby come by this knowledge personally? I would love to see paintings of the two of you. Photography was not invented for over two hundred years after his death.

Also, could you confirm whether or not Shelli is right in claiming Shakespeare’s dramas should not be interpreted? I would love for you to send a current photograph of yourself, as you are an obvious candidate for the Guinness Book of World Records in the age category.”

No reply yet. Perhaps, the knave on the ass has not made it to California yet with her email.

Down with the Orangutan

Clyde got under some skins with last week’s SEP. Hatemailing from the four corners, Louellen (plus three more names) felt she needed to set the ape straight about happy tension.

What kind of nonsense is ‘happy tension’? The two things cannot exist together. That is like saying someone is in a ‘relaxed hurry’ or ‘optimistically pessimistic’. Don’t you know how to google definitions?”

Let’s see. Power to Google? Check. Own dictionary? Check. Answer for hatemail? Check.

Congratulations for falling into the majority for the survey. Unfortunately, you were not the first to respond with ‘relaxed hurry’, the definition of the workaholics and adrenaline junkies. Neither were you the first to respond with ‘optimistically pessimistic’. Most answering the survey were confident something bad was to follow.

M3 does not reward duplicate answers or plagiarized content. Keep taking polls! You may have a novel answer to another one. Meanwhile, you might do well to actually read M3 posts before commenting in the future.”

Example number 9,416 of not reading the instructions. Can we get a rousing round of applause for first comment moderation?

Better Late Than Never

Mantra’s first trip down the runway after her makeover was an active discussion about tardiness and punctuality. We spoke of deadlines, self-imposed timelines and bosses with horns and hooves. One latecomer to the post had a mouthful to say about all of it. Enter Edouard. Hatemailing from Belgium, Eddie had this to say, in pertinent part:

There is no excuse for failing to be on time. Employees should be fired if they are not punctual. I have refused to date women who were not ready for rendez-vous at the appointed hour. [Redacted: another four examples of intolerance to being tardy]

I have never been late, and I never will be. It is very simple. Leave on time.”

This one is another example of virtual perception. I believe his atomic clock was set by humans. Buckle up, Betsy.

Edouard, I have chosen to decline your invitation to connect via Linked.In. It is not in my professional best interest to be connected to those who do not share either a professional interaction or profession with me. Likewise, it is not in my nature to connect to those whose history of unemployment exceeds their history of employment.

While I understand your belief we are connected professionally, the only reclamation I do is in the stupidest inbox in the blogosphere. Good luck on the job hunting.”

Apparently, Belgium is not hurting for garbage men… or at least not ones with a total employment history of 19 months. Any chance he missed a truck? …or seven?

It’s my business.

Nunya.

In a stunning display of STFU, one hatemailer got caught in moderation. Every time a post about relationships has gone up on M3, there has been at least one person who missed the bus. In this case, she missed the short bus, too. No proof she even made the bus stop. Enter contestant number three: Alisa.

Hatemailing from Arkansas (home of many things no one wants to know), Alisa held contempt for the discussion on privacy and information exchange. She is this week’s latecomer.

What i be doing aint nobodys busness but mines. I aint about to be telling nobody what is about me. If they stupid enough to listen to the runors, theys getting what they diserve for being stupid. It aint nobodys busness what im doing no how. If they be busy worrying about they own stuff they aint got time to worry about what im doing”

M3 Readers, this one is all for you. What shall we send to Alisa in answer to her testament to education in Arkansas?

No Good Deed

With the upcoming launch of Redmund Productions, I extended an offer to all of the M3 Readers and their extended networks. Many of you extended the offer to your networks via all the Pay it Forward buttons. El Guapo shared it on his Friday Foolishness (the blogosphere’s companion to Friday Follies). All that came at a price.

First: Hoozah to the 13 authors who are going to join the co-op for what promises to be the only community of its kind on the Internet!

Second: Brilliant!Flash in the Pan has new participants. (After you comment you really NEED to check them out!)

Then, there are the hatemailers. Active and ugly discussions ensued on G+ and Facebook about the venture. (I have yet to check Twitter.) Most of them claimed this was a vanity press raping no talent authors, and I (yes, Red, your non-spambot captain) was a scam artist getting people to pay to have their books printed. My apologies to those whose walls and streams were polluted with the [expletive].

The general tenor of all of the discussions (what a polite word) was the co-op was only a vanity press. Enter the azzhats who have no idea what goes into publishing a book:

If you can write a book, you can do it all yourself. Why would anybody pay to publish?”

Thank you for not reading the instructions. All anyone could pay for (chances are possible not to pay anything) is original cover art and editing (and not at $3-5 per page, 1.25″ margins, double-spaced [PS About 250 words fit in that space. How long is your WIP?]).

Any idiot can make a PDF.”

Anyone with word processing software likely has the ability to output a PDF. Less than 5% of authors know what the proper gutter is for a 427 page novel or what the proper bleed and spine width are for illustrated and spine written covers.

If it was really legit, there would be no limit to how many books are going to be free.”

Many thanks for the vote of confidence and the failure to read. I am only taking 20 books right this minute because I am on a deadline, still have three books of my own in production (two to debut at the launch) and a website to build.

None of that should be paid for. They should get their money when the book sells.”

I tell you what… you spend about 400 hours editing a book and wait to get paid $0.25 per copy of the book sold (with royalties paid 60-90 days after the sale) until you have your money. Oh, and do the work with no guarantee the author is going to promote the book or sell even one copy.

Why would anyone pay and editer? Dont they have spellcheck?

No, most of them have the same software you used for that monument to the Grammar Nazi’s terminal eye twitch.

Let’s get interactive.

Thank you for your interest in the publishing industry. In fact, you have no facts.

Add (+) the fact you have not read the offer nor inquired for clarification of what you misunderstood (no apologies for refusing to sink to a 4th grade reading comprehension level).

Add (+) to that the fact you have never written anything longer than a rant on social media (sans punctuation, capitalization or anything resembling proper English).

Just to sweeten the pot, add (+) the fact your apparent outrage is solely aimed at the idea anyone would help someone else who has spent the last five years of their lives to write a book.

Sum (=): In fact, you are an azzhat. Have a great day!

Wow! Your financial model should be applied to all industries! Think of the money manufacturers could save. It would revolutionize the auto industry. Just imagine it: Assembly line workers could be paid $2.84 per car sold which was built on their assembly line, depreciated by discounts to the MSRP and trade in allowances. Harvesters on farms could be paid when pre-packaged meals are sold. Perhaps, someone could nominate you for a Nobel prize for this piece of financial wizardry.

Could you send me a link to your author’s page on Amazon so I can see how you put your expertise into editing and covering your book? Oh, and do send me a gift link. I do not want to pay for it until after I have read it. I will put it in line. There are 584 books on my ‘to read’ list ahead of yours.

I sincerely hope you week has been free of hatemail, imploded skulls, Guinness Book records, Nobel prizes and oxymorons! Thank you for joining me for the abbreviated version of the 37th edition of the M3 Friday Follies brought to you from the stupidest inbox in the blogosphere and social media. Until we open the SIB next week, have a great one!

Pen your responses to Alisa. The one with the most thumbs up wins. What shall we post to social media to end the lunacytrash talkblatant stupidity discussions? Which contestant wins the Friday Follies Stupidest Crown this week?

Just a bit of business: Whatever the glitch was for the Rafflecopter for GH Ellis’ book is now fixed. If you have not entered today, stop by an grab a chance or 40+. Link under the million word meter.

PS We will visit the FTP hatemail on another edition of the M3 Friday Follies in a highlights reel.

41 Comments

I have a better idea. Lets hunt down idiot boy and I will just rub his face in the sand until he is shiny. No? Oh well, I pick 1 then, it is the best.

Never been late? Refuses to date women who are late? Considered they aren’t late but simply decided after viewing his profile on line they don’t wish to show at all they will push has buttons and avoided the entire boring evening, no? Should like consider this.

You should forward the Arkansas commenter to Eddie from Belgium, because I think they both tied this week, so obviously, the prize should be each other.
hehehe
I can’t pen a response to her because I don’t quite speak her dialect.El Guapo recently posted..Friday Foolishness – Breaking News Edition

hey now! I did NOT have …wait.. I didn;t live in Arkansas…
not that I remember. As I said in my reply, it’s my adaptable nature learned in the Army during Psyops training – I even put an (almost plausible) excert… hmph.. … 😛 Guap says Y’all all the time… I think that is similar dialect… he’s not telling us something …hmmmmmmmm 😉Lizzie Cracked recently posted..Thirty Years Ago,

well its aqn interesting field. I am not really a specialist ..but what would you like to know? I may have to do a post….not sure I can keep up the facade that long (as in more than 150 words) 😀 but I’d be happy to give it a try ..Lizzie Cracked recently posted..Thirty Years Ago,